The spirit of John Wyndham lives on

Rating: Null/10 (10 October 2002)

The use of digital video gives this movie a dreamlike, hallucinogenic quality that works exceptionally well, and compensates to some degree for the plot holes and patchy performances.
Writer Alex Garland must have been reading John Wyndham, as several plot elements - the survivor in hospital, the escaping trio (man, woman, child), the dodgy soldiers, the fortified refuge, the rural escape - mirror those in The Day Of the Triffids. Indeed, though the story has been developed into a more visceral, shock-horror flick, it could be argued that it's a better version of that book than the movie made from it in the 1960s (though not of the BBC TV series).
It's well-directed and edited and, by contemporary standards, less blood-drenched - therefore more interesting - than other recent efforts in the zombie/slasher/horror genre.
6.5/10